Both sides have tried to present the offer as a normal step, but the Vatican’s top ecumenical official, Cardinal Walter Kasper, last week revealed Williams had called him in the middle of the night for an explanation when it was announced.
There was no immediate comment from the Anglican side on William’s brief private audience with the pontiff, which was billed as a courtesy call by church officials.
Media spin and conceptual laziness: in this world, the pope has to be a ‘hardliner’ and the (generic) Anglican ‘conciliatory’. Rowan William’s speech struck me as resentful, petulant, and a defiant call to the RC liberal faction. I can’t imagine relations warming after that display.